Design methodology of hydraulically-driven soft robotic gripper for a large and heavy object

This paper presents a design methodology of a hydraulically-driven soft robotic gripper for grasping a large and heavy object – approximately 10–20 kg with 20–30 cm diameter. Most existing soft grippers are pneumatically actuated with several hundred kPa pressure and cannot generate output force sufficient for such a large and heavy object. Instead of pneumatic actuation, hydraulic actuation has a potential to generate much larger power by several MPa pressure. In this study, we develop a hydraulically-driven soft gripper, in which its basic design parameters are determined based on a mathematical model that represents the relationship among the driving pressure, bending angle, object mass and grasping force. Moreover, we selected materials suitable for grasping a heavier object, based on the finite element analysis result of the detailed design. We report experimental results on a 20-kg object grasping and closed-loop control of the finger bending angle.